Parley is a safe bet. Even if Tramennis wanted to play it safe and attack right away (though he doesn't, he at least wants to use it as an opportunity to gather intel), Slately would insist upon it, paradoxically both to be true to propriety and to insult GK with an impossible offer.

Parley is a safe bet. Even if Tramennis wanted to play it safe and attack right away (though he doesn't, he at least wants to use it as an opportunity to gather intel), Slately would insist upon it, paradoxically both to be true to propriety and to insult GK with an impossible offer.

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

Parley is a safe bet. Even if Tramennis wanted to play it safe and attack right away (though he doesn't, he at least wants to use it as an opportunity to gather intel), Slately would insist upon it, paradoxically both to be true to propriety and to insult GK with an impossible offer.

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

Tramennis--if he goes himself--would hopefully be too smart to stray into the airspace zone: instead of flying up to them, I'd stay on the other side of the zone boundary, ostensibly safe from GK forces and even from GK spells. (Vanna could cast across zones on an allied turn--even if she couldn't cross zones. Could a GK caster do the same in a city hex?)

On another note, I wonder if we've already met any other former Faq casters. Faq was reestablished, but was does that mean to former Faq casters and their loyalty?

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

Well, Trammenis noted entering the city that GK could have dropped stuff on him, so he is aware of the danger of them being above him. Also at a parley he's unlikely to want to be straining looking up at someone he's going to offer terms of surrender, and he wouldn't want to take a one of JS's few flying units and go into the airspace. This leads me to think that he will parley from the balcony of the tower to be on more level terms physically with the GK leaders, and (I remain unconvinced that they can overfly the tower) it is the most protected place to do it from.

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

Well, Trammenis noted entering the city that GK could have dropped stuff on him, so he is aware of the danger of them being above him. Also at a parley he's unlikely to want to be straining looking up at someone he's going to offer terms of surrender, and he wouldn't want to take a one of JS's few flying units and go into the airspace. This leads me to think that he will parley from the balcony of the tower to be on more level terms physically with the GK leaders, and (I remain unconvinced that they can overfly the tower) it is the most protected place to do it from.

Right. So if the tower can not be flown over, Tramennis should parley from there. If the tower can be flown over, JS can parley from wherever they think best, but Slately should be hidden from potshots that could kill him and disband the entire side. As you noted, Tramennis/Slately should be smart enough to figure this out.

If the tower can't be flown over, I can only think of one exploit involving "raining men" and attacking during the parley - using the parley as a diversion and attacking somewhere else, such as the Atrium, walls, or courtyard. Stack bonuses may also be affected during the attack, depending on who is sent to parley with whom (i.e., Tramennis is in tower parleying with Scarlet, leaving Wanda and Ossomer to give their bonuses to the attacking GK stacks, but no Chief Warlord stack bonus for the defending JS stacks).

But probably Parson is more creative than us and/or has more information.

For the sake of story flow and tension, I also guess this will be an actual battle, not just a "Slately gets offed by an exploit and JS disbands".

PS - obviously, when I talk about GK "attacking", I refer to "falling with style", where GK dragons/units hit the ground and the working ones keep attacking.

PPS - Is there any chance that flying mounted units don't suffer fall shockomancy if they never touch the ground? (their mounts do, but passengers don't?) Quite a stretch, but it's a possible exploit.

Developing that, here are the possibilities I see:
Dragon with passenger "falls". The dragon touches ground, but passenger doesn't. There are two possibilities:
A) Both dragon and passenger suffer fall shockomancy.
B) Only dragon suffers.

(A) is what most of us have expected, and offers mediocre possibilities for attack. (B) has potential.

Given B, there are two more possibilities:
B1) Both passenger+dragon are considered to be in the ground hex (and thus, passenger can cast on other grounded units). This doesn't make sense to me, though - if the passenger is in the ground hex, how'd she escape the natural fall-shockomancy?
(edit, possible answer: Mount absorbs the extra shockomancy damage?)

B2) Only the dragon is in ground hex. The passenger is considered to be still flying, as she never technically touched the ground. Presumably she couldn't cast on grounded units.. except.. possibly, units she can touch while mounted. That'd be a second exploit: casting across zones on units that Wanda or the Pliers are physically touching.
That'd work.. quite a pair of exploits, but it seems possible. If Wanda can decrypt units from the back of a grounded unit without suffering fall damage, she may be able to snowball an army. Though, if she's technically "flying", she doesn't give the hex or stack bonuses for the decrypted units on the ground. =\

Like I said: a stretch. But we've only come up with mediocre ideas otherwise. What does Parson/Rob know that we don't?

Given B, there are two more possibilities:
B1) Both passenger+dragon are considered to be in the ground hex (and thus, passenger can cast on other grounded units). This doesn't make sense to me, though - if the passenger is in the ground hex, how'd she escape the natural fall-shockomancy?
(edit, possible answer: Mount absorbs the extra shockomancy damage?)

This could also tie back into Parson's dwagon experiment. Maybe if the fall is due to overloading and not choice, only the dwagon takes the hit.

It doesn't seem unreasonable for the mount to take most of the damage. If it was RL, then that is what would happen with a fall.

It doesn't seem unreasonable for the mount to take most of the damage. If it was RL, then that is what would happen with a fall.

Just because it's not reasonable to us doesn't mean it's not precisely how it works on Erf.

In most turn based strategy games, a mounted unit is considered one unit for all game purposes. So, a mounted unit and his mount share a pool of "hits". When those hits are depleted both the mount and rider are eliminated.

That doesn't mean it works that way in Erfworld, but appealing to the logic of the kinds of games that Erfworld emulates makes more sense than appealing to real-life logic.

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